Injured Innocence
From Clive Newcome, Esq., to Lieut.-Col. Newcome, C.B.
“Brighton, June 12, 18 —.
“My Dearest Father — As the weather was growing very hot at Naples, and you wished I should come to England to see Mr. Binnie, I came accordingly, and have been here three weeks, and write to you from Aunt Honeyman’s parlour at Brighton, where you ate your last dinner before embarking for India. I found your splendid remittance calling in Fog Court, and have invested a part of the sum in a good horse to ride, upon which I take my diversion with other young dandies in the Park. Florac is in England, but he has no need of your kindness. Only think! he is Prince de Moncontour now, the second title of the Duc d’Ivry’s family; and M. le Comte de Florac is Duc d’Ivry in consequence of the demise of t’other old gentleman. I believe the late duke’s wife shortened his life. Oh, what a woman! She caused a duel between Lord Kew and a Frenchman, which has in its turn occasioned all sorts of evil and division in families, as you shall hear.
“In the first place, in consequence of the duel and of incompatibility of temper, the match between Kew and E. N. has been broken off. I met Lord Kew at Naples with his mother and brother, nice quiet people as you would like them. Kew’s wound and subsequent illness have altered him a good deal. He has become much more serious than he used to be; not ludicrously so at all, but he says he thinks his past life has been useless and even criminal, and he wishes to change it. He has sold his horses, and sown his wild oats. He has turned quite a sober quiet gentleman.
“At our meeting he told me of what had happened between him and Ethel, of whom he spoke most kindly and generously, but avowing his opinion that they never could have been happy in married life. And now I think my dear old father will see that there may be another reason besides my desire to see Mr. Binnie, which has brought me tumbling back to England again. If need be to speak, I never shall have, I hope, any secrets from you. I have not said much about one which has given me the deuce’s disquiet for ten months past, because there was no good in talking about it, or vexing you needlessly with reports of my griefs and woes.
“Well, when we were at Baden in September last, and E. and I wrote those letters in common to you, I dare say you can fancy what my feelings might have been towards such a beautiful young creature, who has a hundred faults, for which I love her just as much as for the good that is in her. I became dreadfully smitten indeed, and knowing that she was engaged to Lord Kew, I did as you told me you did once when the enemy was too strong for you — I ran away. I had a bad time of it for two or three months. At Rome, however, I began to take matters more easily, my naturally fine appetite returned, and at the end of the season I found myself uncommonly happy in the society of the Miss Baliols and the Miss Freemans; but when Kew told me at Naples of what had happened, there was straightway a fresh eruption in my heart, and I was fool enough to come almost without sleep to London in order to catch a glimpse of the bright eyes of E. N.
“She is now in this very house upstairs with one aunt, whilst the other lets lodgings to her. I have seen her but very seldom indeed since I came to London, where Sir Brian and Lady Anne do not pass the season, and Ethel goes about to a dozen parties every week with old Lady Kew, who neither loves you nor me. Hearing E. say she was coming down to her parents at Brighton, I made so bold as to waylay her at the train (though I didn’t tell her that I passed three hours in the waiting-room); and we made the journey together, and she was very kind and beautiful; and though I suppose I might just as well ask the Royal Princess to have me, I can’t help hoping and longing and hankering after her. And Aunt Honeyman must have found out that I am fond of her, for the old lady has received me with a scolding. Uncle Charles seems to be in very good condition again. I saw him in full clerical feather — at Madame de Moncontour’s, a good-natured body who drops her h’s, though Florac is not aware of their absence. Pendennis and Warrington, I know, would send you their regards. Pen is conceited, but much kinder in reality than he has the air of being. Fred Bayham is doing well, and prospering in his mysterious way.
“Mr. Binnie is not looking at all well: and Mrs. Mack — well, as I know you never attack a lady behind her lovely back, I won’t say a word of Mrs. Mack — but she has taken possession of Uncle James, and seems to me to weigh upon him somehow. Rosey is as pretty and good-natured as ever, and has learned two new songs; but you see, with my sentiments in another quarter, I feel as it were guilty and awkward in company of Rosey and her mamma. They have become the very greatest friends with Bryanstone Square, and Mrs. Mack is always citing Aunt Hobson as the most superior of women, in which opinion, I daresay, Aunt Hobson concurs.
“Good-bye, my dearest father; my sheet is full; I wish I could put my arm in yours and pace up and down the pier with you, and tell you more and more. But you know enough now, and that I am your affectionate son always, C. N.”
In fact, when Mr. Clive appeared at Steyne Gardens stepping out of the fly, and handing Miss Ethel thence, Miss Honeyman of course was very glad to see her nephew, and saluted him with a little embrace to show her sense of pleasure at his visit. But the next day, being Sunday, when Clive, with a most engaging smile on his countenance, walked over to breakfast from his hotel, Miss Honeyman would scarcely speak to him during the meal, looked out at him very haughtily from under her Sunday cap, and received his stories about Italy with “Oh! ah! indeed!” in a very unkind manner. And when breakfast was over, and she had done washing her age chins, she fluttered up to Clive with such an agitation of plumage, redness of craw, and anger of manner, as a maternal hen shows if she has reason to think you menace her chickens. She fluttered up to Clive, I say, and cried out, “Not in this house, Clive — not in this house, I beg you to understand that!”
Clive, looking amazed, said, “Certainly not, ma’am; I never did do it in the house, as I know you don’t like it. I was going into the Square.” The young man meaning that he was about to smoke, and conjecturing that his aunt’s anger applied to that practice.
“You know very well what I mean, sir! Don’t try to turn me off in that highty-tighty way. My dinner today is at half-past one. You can dine or not as you like,” and the old lady flounced out of the room.
Poor Clive stood rolling his cigar in sad perplexity of spirit, until Mrs. Honeyman’s servant Hannah entered, who, for her part, grinned and looked particularly sly. “In the name of goodness, Hannah, what is the row about?” cries Mr. Clive. “What is my aunt scolding at? What are you grinning at, you old Cheshire cat?”
“Git long, Master Clive,” says Hannah, patting the cloth.
“Get along! why get along, and where am I to get along to?”
“Did ‘ee do ut really now, Master Clive?” cries Mrs. Honeyman’s attendant, grinning with the utmost good-humour. “Well, she be as pretty a young lady as ever I saw; and as I told my missis, ‘Miss Martha,’ says I, ‘there’s a pair on ’em.’ Though missis was mortal angry to be sure. She never could bear it.”
“Bear what? you old goose!” cries Clive, who by these playful names had been wont to designate Hannah these twenty years past.
“A young gentleman and a young lady a kissing of each other in the railway coach,” says Hannah, jerking up with her finger to the ceiling, as much as to say, “There she is! Lar, she be a pretty young creature, that she be! and so I told Miss Martha.” Thus differently had the news which had come to them on the previous night affected the old lady and her maid.
The news was, that Miss Newcome’s maid (a giddy thing from the county, who had not even learned as yet to hold her tongue) had announced with giggling delight to Lady Anne’s maid, who was taking tea with Mrs. Hicks, that Mr. Clive had given Miss Ethel a kiss in the tunnel, and she supposed it was a match. This intelligence Hannah Hicks took to her mistress, of whose angry behaviour to Clive the next morning you may now understand the cause.
Clive did not know whether to laugh or to be in a rage. He swore that he was as innocent of all intention of kissing Miss Ethel as of embracing Queen Elizabeth. He was shocked to think of his cousin, walking above, fancy-free in maiden meditation, whilst this conversation regarding her was carried on below. How could he face her, or her mother, or even her maid, now he had cognisance of this naughty calumny? “Of course Hannah had contradicted it?” “Of course I have a done no such indeed,” replied Master Clive’s old friend; “of course I have set ’em down a bit; for when little Trimmer said it, and she supposed it was all settled between you, seeing how it had been a going on in foreign parts last year, Mrs. Pincott says, ‘Hold your silly tongue, Trimmer,’ she says; ‘Miss Ethel marry a painter, indeed, Trimmer!’ says she, ‘while she has refused to be a Countess,’ she says; ‘and can be a Marchioness any day, and will be a Marchioness. Marry a painter, indeed!’ Mrs. Pincott says; ‘Trimmer, I’m surprised at your impidence.’ So, my dear, I got angry at that,” Clive’s champion continued, “and says I, if my young master ain’t good enough for any young lady in this world, says I, I’d like you to show her to me: and if his dear father, the Colonel, says I, ain’t as good as your old gentleman upstairs, says I, who has gruel and dines upon doctor’s stuff, the Mrs. Pincott, says I, my name isn’t what it is, says I. Those were my very words, Master Clive, my dear; and then Mrs. Pincott says, Mrs. Hicks, she says, you don’t understand society, she says; you don’t understand society, he! he!” and the country lady, with considerable humour, gave an imitation of the town lady’s manner.
At this juncture Miss Honeyman re-entered the parlour, arrayed in her Sunday bonnet, her stiff and spotless collar, her Cashmere shawl, and Agra brooch, and carrying her Bible and Prayer-Book each stitched in its neat cover of brown silk. “Don’t stay chattering here, you idle woman,” she cried to her attendant with extreme asperity. “And you, sir, if you wish to smoke your cigar, you had best walk down to the cliff where the Cockneys are!” she added, glowering at Clive.
“Now I understand it all,” Clive said, trying to deprecate her anger. “My dear good aunt, it’s a most absurd mistake; upon my honour, Miss Ethel is as innocent as you are.”
“Innocent or not, this house is not intended for assignations, Clive! As long as Sir Brian Newcome lodges here, you will be pleased to keep away from it, sir; and though I don’t approve of Sunday travelling, I think the very best thing you can do is to put yourself in the train and go back to London.”
And now, young people, who read my moral pages, you will see how highly imprudent it is to sit with your cousins in railway carriages; and how, though you may not mean the slightest harm in the world, a great deal may be attributed to you; and how, when you think you are managing your little absurd love-affairs ever so quietly, Jeames and Betsy in the servants’-hall are very likely talking about them, and you are putting yourself in the power of those menials. If the perusal of these lines has rendered one single young couple uncomfortable, surely my amiable end is answered, and I have written not altogether in vain.
Clive was going away, innocent though he was, yet quivering under his aunt’s reproof, and so put out of countenance that he had not even thought of lighting the great cigar which he stuck into his foolish mouth; when a shout of “Clive! Clive!” from half a dozen little voices roused him, and presently as many little Newcomes came toddling down the stairs, and this one clung round his knees, and that at the skirts of his coat, and another took his hand and said, he must come and walk with them on the beach.
So away went Clive to walk with his cousins, and then to see his old friend Miss Cann, with whom and the elder children he walked to church, and issuing thence greeted Lady Anne and Ethel (who had also attended the service) in the most natural way in the world.
While engaged in talking with these, Miss Honeyman came out of the sacred edifice, crisp and stately in the famous Agra brooch and Cashmere shawls. The good-natured Lady Anne had a smile and a kind word for her as for everybody. Clive went up to his maternal aunt to offer his arm. “You must give him up to us for dinner, Miss Honeyman, if you please to be so very kind. He was so good-natured in escorting Ethel down,” Lady Anne said.
“Hm! my lady,” says Miss Honeyman, perking her head up in her collar. Clive did not know whether to laugh or not, but a fine blush illuminated his countenance. As for Ethel, she was and looked perfectly unconscious. So, rustling in her stiff black silk, Martha Honeyman walked with her nephew silent by the shore of the much-sounding sea. The idea of courtship, of osculatory processes, of marrying and giving in marriage, made this elderly virgin chafe and fume, she never having, at any period of her life, indulged in any such ideas or practices, and being angry against them, as childless wives will sometimes be angry and testy against matrons with their prattle about their nurseries. Now, Miss Cann was a different sort of spinster, and loved a bit of sentiment with all her heart from which I am led to conclude — but, pray, is this the history of Miss Cann or of the Newcomes?
All these Newcomes then entered into Miss Honeyman’s house, where a number of little knives and forks were laid for them. Ethel was cold and thoughtful; Lady Anne was perfectly good-natured as her wont was. Sir Brian came in on the arm of his valet presently, wearing that look of extra neatness which invalids have, who have just been shaved and combed, and made ready by their attendants to receive company. He was voluble: though there was a perceptible change in his voice: he talked chiefly of matters which had occurred forty years ago, and especially of Clive’s own father, when he was a boy, in a manner which interested the young man and Ethel. “He threw me down in a chaise — sad chap — always reading Orme’s History of India — wanted marry Frenchwoman. He wondered Mrs. Newcome didn’t leave Tom anything —‘pon my word, quite s’prise.” The events of today, the House of Commons, the City, had little interest for him. All the children went up and shook him by the hand, with awe in their looks, and he patted their yellow heads vacantly and kindly. He asked Clive (several times) where he had been? and said he himself had had a slight ‘tack — vay slight — was getting well ev’y day — strong as a horse — go back to Parliament d’rectly. And then he became a little peevish with Parker, his man, about his broth. The man retired, and came back presently, with profound bows and gravity, to tell Sir Brian dinner was ready, and he went away quite briskly at this news, giving a couple of fingers to Clive before he disappeared into the upper apartments. Good-natured Lady Anne was as easy about this as about the other events of this world. In later days, with what a strange feeling we remember that last sight we have of the old friend; that nod of farewell, and shake of the hand, that last look of the face and figure as the door closes on him, or the coach drives away! So the roast mutton was ready, and all the children dined very heartily.
The infantile meal had not been long concluded, when servants announced “the Marquis of Farintosh;” and that nobleman made his appearance to pay his respects to Miss Newcome and Lady Anne. He brought the very last news of the very last party in London, where “Real............